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Defend the Consumer Bureau

Our Consumer Cop On the Financial Beat

You should be able to save, invest and manage your money without fear of being trapped, tricked or ripped off by the institutions you're trusting with your financial future. That’s why we need strong consumer protections on Wall Street.

The 2008 economic collapse made it even more clear that Americans need a watchdog agency devoted to creating and enforcing fair, clear and transparent rules to protect consumers in the financial marketplace. So in 2010, we helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to be our watchdog on Wall Street. But now, the Trump administration and Wall Street's allies in Congress are looking to weaken or eliminate the Consumer Bureau. We can't let that happen.

The CFPB Gets the Job Done

Despite the fact that the CFPB is not widely known, it's been a huge success for consumers, returning nearly $12 billion to more than 29 million people who were ripped off by companies that broke the law … in just six years.

The CFPB holds big banks, debt collectors, and lenders accountable. Here are a few examples of some of the cases the CFPB has taken on to protect consumers:

In 2015, the Department of Justice and 47 states joined the CFPB in a $216 million action against JP Morgan Chase Bank for illegal debt collection practices affecting more than half a million Americans.

The CFPB fined Equifax andTransUnion — two of the three largest credit reporting agencies — $5 million for selling inflated credit scores to consumers that were different from ones actually used by lenders, and returned $17 million to those consumers harmed by the deception.

In addition, the Consumer Bureau has helped level the financial playing field, educating veterans, senior citizens, new homeowners, college students, and low-income consumers on how to keep their finances secure.

The Consumer Bureau's success should be earning it applause in Washington. The idea that consumers deserve protection against fraud and other misleading practices shouldn't be controversial.

Yet instead of cheering on the Consumer Bureau, the Trump administration and some members of Congress are pushing to weaken or even get rid of it.

Senators: Keep our Watchdog on Wall Street

We can keep our consumer cop on the financial beat — but only if we can convince enough senators to stand up and defend the Consumer Bureau, and stop any bad bills that try to roll back or eliminate consumer protections.

Even with the Consumer Bureau on the job, many Americans are still at risk of reckless financial practices that threaten their homes, their retirement savings, and their overall well-being. That’s why we don’t simply need the Consumer Bureau to exist: We need to make it even better, by strengthening commonsense consumer protections, spreading the word about its success and potential, and defending it from constant attacks from Wall Street.

In the wake of the Great Recession, we helped spearhead the creation of the Consumer Bureau. Now, we need your help to stand up for consumer protection once again, and defend the CFPB from those who would weaken or eliminate it.

Check out our Reports about the CFPB

In the years since the Consumer Bureau was created, we've worked alongside Frontier Group to research and review the CFPB's Consumer Complaint Database to publish a series of reports documenting the problems consumers are facing in the financial marketplace, how the Consumer Bureau is helping to resolve these issues, and what steps should be taken to ensure consumers are protected. Click through to learn more about each of these reports:

Issue updates

An analysis of new government data by U.S. PIRG Education Fund found that big banks made $8.4 Billion in overdraft fee income in the first three quarters of 2016, up nearly 4% from the same period in 2015. Since the beginning of 2015, all banks greater than $1 Billion in assets have been required to report fee data quarterly and are included in the study.

Overdraft fees are a major source of consumer pain, since they are borne disproportionately by Americans with few financial resources. Through the first three quarters of 2016, 626 large banks reported collecting $8.4 billion in revenue from overdraft and NSF fees, an increase of 3.6 percent over the same period in 2015. American consumers should look to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which has already enforced overdraft regulations and returned millions of dollars to consumers, to take new action to prevent unfair overdraft fees.

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a report shining a spotlight on contracts between banks and colleges to promote debit cards on campus. Students continue to get hit hard with overdraft fees attached to their campus bank accounts. According to the report, nearly one in ten consumers in the population with student accounts incurred 10 or more overdrafts per year, paying, on average, $196 in overdraft fees alone. Below is a detailed analysis by US. PIRG's Chris Lindstrom, who championed the protections that the CFPB is reporting on. This report is one more example of why we need a strong CFPB.

Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency was granted increased authority to regulate chemicals on the market. Under an updated federal toxics law, the EPA must review 10 chemicals currently on the market for safety, and they’ve already gotten started. This week, after naming the first 10 chemicals it will review, the EPA proposed the first federal toxic chemical ban in 27 years. That’s a big deal.

UPDATE: I recently wrote about an amicus brief that U.S. PIRG Education Fund filed in support of consumers and independent ATM owners in two consolidated cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Well, those cases aren’t pending anymore. On November 17, 2016, the Court issued a rare order throwing out the cases before they were argued.

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In a series of joint privacy petitions to the Federal Trade Commission beginning in 2006 and extended more recently to include behavioral targeting, as well as medical and mobile marketing, U.S. PIRG and the Center for Digital Democracy (sometimes with allies) have argued for greater scrutiny and regulation of the online digital marketing and behavioral targeting ecosystem that involves companies you do business with, social networking tools, third-party advertisers and other players. Today, in the New York Times, Professor Lori Andrews says that "Facebook is Using You."

Some user reviews on the Internet are written by sockpuppets paid by the website; in other cases, consumers are given inducements to write good reviews (New York Times). Meanwhile, doctors, especially, are trying to use copyright law to "squelch" valid reviews from patients (Washington Post). Either way, watch out.

As the House considers the next coronavirus funding bill, the Heroes Act, an analysis by U.S. PIRG of recent complaints to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) shows an alarming need for Congressional action to protect consumers from the pandemic’s repercussions.

Consumer Reports, U.S. PIRG and a consumer-turned-activist delivered nearly 250,000 petition signatures today to the airlines calling on them to provide full refunds when passengers cancel their flights because of concerns about the coronavirus.

If you’re like me, you’re spending a lot more time cleaning while sheltering in place. My increased time at home cooking, working, and playing with my children makes a lot of mess! I am also cleaning more as a way to reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19. I enjoy my cleaning routine; in a day full of zoom calls and wrangling small children, it’s nice to take a break to listen to the radio or music while I wipe down the counters or sweep the floor.

U.S. PIRG Education Fund has released a report with the Student Borrower Protection Center and Consumer Action. The report makes recommendations to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to upgrade its consumer complaint tool, including the public consumer complaint database, so COVID19-related complaints can be handled more quickly and tracked better.

A U.S. PIRG report finds that complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reached record numbers in April. Credit reporting complaints, which historically top the list, increased by more than 20,000.

During an online panel organized by U.S. PIRG, former CFPB Director Rich Cordray warned that this difficult time will likely last longer than most believe, and that consumers need protections such as mortgage relief and a halt on evictions for nonpayment of rent in order to weather it.

More than 100 mayors and county executives joined U.S. PIRG in sending a letter to the Trump administration urging the federal government to invoke the Defense Production Act to increase production of critical medical supplies, and to establish a system to distribute those supplies to front line workers.

On March 31, Marriott disclosed its second data breach in 16 months, this time related to its loyalty app. The hack exposed the personal data of 5.2 million guests, putting them at risk of phishing schemes.